Then Thompson implored him to “look at the whole picture” rather than one situation. “What I’m saying is that as a general rule, the President of the United States cannot sit there and make a case about what some company ought to do down in Houston, Texas, or somewhere like that,” he said. “What a president can do is insist on lower taxes, less regulation, less interference, a decent Fed policy through appointment to the Federal Reserve Board, and things of that nature that will make for a good, free, viable, economy. And if companies do wrong in the free market place, they’re usually punished by that same market.”